


A Long Fall

by typhiria



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (it's glenn), (it's miklan), Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, SMART SYLVAIN RIGHTS, Sci-Fi AU, fungus, no beta we die like Glenn, voyageur - Freeform, why is that all caps?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhiria/pseuds/typhiria
Summary: Descent drives are small, inscrutable pieces of alien technology, capable of jumping between stars in mere milliseconds-- but only one way. They fall and fall and fall into the center of the galaxy, perhaps drawn by some sort of gravity, perhaps chasing some other alien, unknowable thing.Felix was content to fall and fall and fall, to make his little spaceship and his friends his home, until the day he met Sylvain Gautier.A Voyageur AU. (voyageur.space)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 81





	1. Ivory Dome

One day, Felix will find a domed city that smells... acceptable. That day is not today. _How the fuck do they breathe this shit?_ He's sitting on the _Areadbhar's_ loading dock, taking in the sights of Azara III's second largest spaceport; he thought that would be better than sitting inside waiting for Ashe and the others to return, but this stench has him reconsidering. That, and what passes for the night sky around here. Whatever the dome's made of, it isn't transparent; someone's hung lights in the highest reaches like stars, arranged like the constellations of old Earth. People must live here all their lives and never see a real star. Fucked up.

A dockworker sees the scowl on Felix's face and immediately fucks off. Good. The person behind him, a tall redhead who is definitely not a dockworker, does not. _Fuck._ He's too well dressed for a spaceport, as if he's never seen grease or coolant or dirt in his life, and that smile pasted on his face is good enough for an ad. "So," the redhead says. "Do you take passengers?" His gaze is fixed on Felix's arms, where the cybernetics twine over his skin like vines.

"We aren't a luxury liner," Felix says. "And we only have room for one passenger." Technically not a lie; the other two empty cabins were for crew.

"That's fine. I just want to get off this fucking planet." Someone less refined would have spat. "Are you leaving soon?"

"In a day or two." Felix gets to his feet. "Come with me." He leads the redhead inside the ship to the common room, which is also the bridge, and sits him down at a table covered in books and a half-played board game. "What's your name? Your real one."

"Sylvain Gautier," the redhead answers easily. Felix links up with the planetary network through his AR implant and runs a search. "Going to look me up, or anything?"

There are... a lot of search results. "Maybe later," Felix says. "How are you planning on paying?" He keeps one eye on Sylvain and the other on the AR projection, flipping through articles about... the dome's president? _The fuck?_

"My money's worthless off planet, right?" Sylvain waits for Felix to nod. He's right. It's kind of infuriating. "So I was thinking about bringing some cargo for you to sell."

Felix finds Sylvain in a fucking gossip rag, of all places. If even half of these articles can be believed, Sylvain is the horniest asshole on the planet, and also the son of President Gautier of Dome IV. _What the fuck._ "I, uh, have access to some really exclusive wine cellars," Sylvain is saying. "Could get you as much of the good shit as you want, flood like six markets? If you want." He stops talking, because it must be obvious even to him that Felix has stopped listening. "Or, uh, I could find you some weird alien shit? I hear there's all kinds of weird shit outside the dome."

"Sylvain. If we take you, is this shithole's military going to come after us?"

Sylvain winces. "So you knew the whole time, huh?"

"I looked you up. I have implants. Now answer the question."

Startled, Sylvain peers into Felix's eyes, as if he can see the implants if he looks closely enough. "We're... estranged, let's call it. Aren't Descent drives fast, anyway? We'll be gone before anyone even notices!"

Felix represses a sigh. "You have," he says, "no idea how this shit works." He expects Sylvain to cut in with some dumb shit he thinks he knows about Descent drives, but he doesn't say anything. "We have to get off the planet, unless we want to take a chunk of it with us."

"That would be, uh, counterproductive," Sylvain says.

"No shit. Then we have to get clear of all the shit in orbit. I don't know if you've seen it but there's a lot of shit up there. That'll probably take a day or so." Felix forces himself to look into Sylvain's eyes. "So. Are they going to fuck with us?"

Sylvain swallows. "They won't. I haven't talked to my dad in like, fourteen years. He doesn't give a shit about me."

Felix is still sifting through search results, but there's so much and most of it is utterly irrelevant. "Okay. Tell me more about the weird alien shit."

~*~

Felix is letting Sylvain chatter on about precursor artifacts (he's so excited, Felix doesn't have the heart to make him shut up) when an alert flashes over AR and he gets up. "The rest of the crew's back," he tells Sylvain, who follows him out to the loading dock. As usual, Ingrid's bought too much food. Ashe is carrying a small, incredibly nondescript crate, and Annette and Mercedes are talking about making a cake. "We've got a passenger," Felix announces. "He still needs to bring his fare, though. Ashe, can you handle it?"

"Careful, Felix. Someone might think you're in charge." Ingrid snorts.

Ashe hands his crate to Felix. "You should put this somewhere safe," he says. "I'll take care of our passenger here. Hey, what's your name?"

"Sylvain Gautier, who just happens to be some big shot's son," Felix says before Sylvain can. "So we need to get moving."

"Right," Ashe says. "Let's go."

Mercedes follows Felix inside, and watches as he pries the crate open to reveal some probably illegal weapons tech. "We've been downside for half a day. How the fuck does he do it?"

"I was helping Annette and Ingrid with the shopping." Mercedes shrugs. "Is Sylvain going to complicate things?"

"He says not. I'm not sure I believe him." Felix pops open a hidden compartment next to the nav desk. "This place is a shithole though. Shouldn't be anything we can't handle."

"I hope you're right," Mercedes says, before she leaves to help put the supplies away. Felix seals the secret compartment shut.

~*~

Twenty hours later, they're in orbit. Mercedes and Ashe are teaching Sylvain how to play Seven-League Stride while Annette maneuvers the _Areadbhar_ away from orbital traffic. Felix sits at the weapons station, watching for trouble. Ingrid's below, babysitting the insystem drives; she'd noticed a weird modulation two planets ago but hadn't been able to find the parts to fix it yet.

"Felix, we're being hailed," Annette says.

Felix turns, but Mercedes is already pulling Sylvain out of sight. "How much longer do we need?"

"Three minutes?"

There's no way Felix can keep a planetary fleet talking for three entire minutes, even with comms lag, but he has to try. "Put them on screen."

"Descent vessel _Areadbhar_ , heave to at once!"

Felix blinks. "What the fuck does that mean?"

Lag. The comms officer on the other end stares, dumbfounded, into her video pickup. "It means stop. Stop your ship." She's professional enough not to call Felix incompetent.

"And why would I do that?" Felix asks. _Keep talking._

Two minutes to go. "We have reason to believe you have contraband on board, _Areadbhar_. We are authorized to fire on you if you do not cooperate."

Felix, very carefully, does not look at Ashe. "What kind of contraband?"

The only answer he gets is his scan lighting up with missiles. Annette sees it too, and before Felix can say anything his stomach twists and the scan display scrambles. The starscape outside shifts into something less recognizable.

"We're definitely off course," Annette says, frowning at something only she can see. "I'll need a few minutes."

Felix leaves her to it and turns to Ashe. "So. What did we steal?"

"I _paid_ for those weapons, Felix! And it was just weapons! They had no reason to come after us like that!" Ashe jumps up. "Where'd you put them? I'll show you."

"I looked," Felix says.

Ashe glances outside, at the stars. "Then you know what we've got. And I'm going to go check on our air and water," he adds, making his escape.

Ingrid storms in. Felix has to admit, Ashe has good timing. "How. Many. Times," she shouts, "do I have to tell you to check with me before you engage the fucking Descent drive?"

"We were getting shot at, Ingrid."

"Yeah, there were a lot of missiles! We really pissed them off, I think." Annette turns back to her star maps. Felix makes a note to himself to get her something nice if they ever make it to a planet.

Ingrid just stands there and breathes for a second. "Felix Hugo Fraldarius, why the _fuck_ were we getting fucking shot at?!" Every time she does that, Felix wants to go back in time and kick his drunken past self in the dick.

He shrugs. "They were saying some shit about contraband, but most people don't waste missiles on a little smuggling. Want to help me find out?"

They find Sylvain in the galley, looking a little green. _Right. It's his first time._ Ingrid, however, has no sympathy. "So, idiot," she says. "Care to explain the fucking missiles?"

Sylvain blinks. "What missiles?"

"The ones your shithole planet's fleet shot at us. Got something you didn't tell me about?" Felix leans against the counter, crossing his arms.

Sylvain looks even greener now. It's not a good color for him. "What? I-- _fuck,_ I'm sorry, I didn't..." He leans over the sink and retches into it. "I fucked up," he says. "Thought they wouldn't care. Last time I talked to him he wasn't even in office. Fucking hell. I'm sorry."

Ingrid glares at him. "That doesn't make any sense. And you're cleaning that up."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure." Sylvain sinks to the floor. "Fuck."

"We don't need to know right this second. We've got time," Felix says, because Mercedes is giving him a Look and he hates it when she does that. "I'm gonna go see if Annette's figured out where we are yet."

Ingrid grumbles something about _vetting passengers, dumbass,_ as she follows Felix back to the bridge. "Felix!" Annette calls out. "I've got a course set for Kydoimos. But..." Felix has never heard of Kydoimos, but he hasn’t heard of most of the planets he ends up visiting, so that can’t be the problem. 

"But?" Felix pulls up a projection of the route on his AR. _Oh. Fuck._

"We can't use the Descent drive to get closer, so we'll have to use the insystem drives. It'll take four months."

"And there's nowhere towards galactic center we could go instead?"

"Not that I know of, and we don't have the supplies to go exploring." Annette looks at Ingrid. "Can you get four months out of the insystem drives?"

"We'd have to service them at least once. I'm sure Felix would love to help me out with that," Ingrid says with a grin.

Felix groans. "When we get to Kydoimos, we're putting in supports or something. I can't keep doing that."

"Sure you can!"

"Get Sylvain to help," Annette says mischievously. It is the most heinous betrayal Felix has ever experienced. He will not be getting her anything nice. Absolutely not. _Fuck, who am I kidding?_

~*~

The next day, Felix finds Sylvain on the bridge, staring out at the stars. He doesn't seem to notice Felix's approach. “Like what you see?”

“That’s my line,” Sylvain says, eyes still fixed on the stars. “You know, the holos don’t do this justice.”

“Yeah, they really don’t.” Felix remembers the holos that came out during science class, back when he was a kid. Astronomy had never really interested him, but the stars were pretty.

“You get to look at this every day, huh? Does it ever get old?”

Felix looks out at the starscape. “It doesn’t,” he admits. It doesn’t get old, but he can’t sit still and stare at the stars forever. “Anyway, you’re coming with me.”

“What? What did I do?” Sylvain scrambles to his feet.

“We’re stuck out here for four months, Sylvain. You’re helping out.”

Sylvain blinks. “Oh. That’s fair. Just tell me what you need me to do!”

He is far less enthusiastic when Felix drags him into Environmental. “It smells weird,” he complains. The level is full of low-light plants and compost vats, and the smell is strange, but not entirely unpleasant.

“It’s supposed to smell like this,” Felix says. He checks the logs over AR just to be sure. “You’re going to clean up in here. Don’t fuck with the plants or the vats. I happen to like breathing, even if you don’t.”

When he comes back to check on Sylvain three hours later, Environmental is cleaner than he’s seen it since-- in a long time. “Didn’t take you for a janitor.”

Sylvain’s on his knees next to one of the bigger vats, knocking dust and detritus out from underneath it with a broom. “You’d kick my ass if I were lazy about this, I’m sure.”

“I would,” Felix says. Still, he’s impressed. He’d expected to have to threaten Sylvain into half-assing it. _Maybe he could--_ No. Thinking like that wouldn’t lead anywhere good. “Mercedes is making lunch, if you’re hungry,” he says instead.

If Sylvain notices his hesitation, he doesn’t mention it. 

~*~

A month later, Ingrid declares that the insystem drives absolutely need to be serviced, today, _right now, Felix,_ and Felix has exactly zero regrets about dragging Sylvain along. Sylvain watches Felix drag the first drive column out of its housing. “That looks really heavy.”

“It is. Get over here.”

Sylvain takes off his shirt before he steps up to help hold the column, and now Felix has regrets. It’s unfair how attractive the man is. Felix looks down, carefully inspecting the top of the column as Ingrid slides underneath it. “So, are you supposed to do this?” Sylvain asks. “Because I don’t think you’re supposed to do this.”

“They’re supposed to support their own weight,” Ingrid says. “We’ve modified them too much, though.”

“We’re definitely putting supports in,” Felix grits out. His eyes slide up to trace over Sylvain’s abs and nope, _nope,_ looking at the drive column again. Definitely _not_ getting horny in the same room as Ingrid. Absolutely not. _I’m thirty-two years old, I can fucking control myself._

Ingrid fiddles with something Felix can’t see. “I don’t see why we should waste time on something like that when you’re right here, Felix.”

“We could trade places,” Felix says. Ingrid is perfectly capable of holding the drive column up, especially with Sylvain’s help. 

“Nope. You’ll ruin everything.”

Felix knows damn well he wouldn’t, but he bites his tongue. “How much longer?”

“Getting tired?” Ingrid teases. “Don’t worry, I’ll be done with this one soon.”

“How many more are there?” Sylvain asks.

Felix’s eyes snap up to Sylvain’s face, because whatever his other shortcomings are, Felix thought he could fucking _count._ “Three more. Are you blind?”

“How was I supposed to know you were doing all of them today?” Sylvain fires back.

“If you two idiots drop this drive on me I will never forgive you,” comes from underneath the column. Felix isn’t particularly concerned about Ingrid’s forgiveness, mostly because he’s not going to give her anything to forgive, but he shuts up anyway.

~*~

Felix used to find exercise soothing. He could just walk into the gym and turn his mind off as he worked out. He didn’t have to make any decisions, or listen to anyone else’s bullshit. The rest of the crew were considerate enough not to bother him. 

Sylvain, however, was not. Lately he’d been wandering into the _Areadbhar’s_ tiny gym just as Felix was finishing up for the morning, always with something flirty to say. Well, if you counted “wow, nice muscles, Felix,” as flirty. 

Sure enough, Sylvain shows up just as Felix is changing out of his workout clothes. _How does he know?_ This time, he doesn’t have anything flirty to say. His eyes linger a little too long on Felix’s arms. "So, hey... I've been meaning to ask, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to. So, uh..." Sylvain trails off.

"Spit it out already," Felix says.

"Wha-- oh. Um. What happened to your arms?"

 _Of course he'd be one of those. Of course._ "Nothing. I wanted cybernetics, so I got them." It had been a little more complicated than that, but Sylvain didn't need to hear the details. "And if you start going on about the sanctity of the human body or whatever, I will punch you right in your stupid face."

Sylvain backs off, his hands up. "I wasn't! I always hated hearing that shit, anyway." His eyes cloud over. "I just... never mind." He pushes past Felix, rougher than he probably intended; Felix lets him go.

~*~

"So,” Sylvain asks over dinner, “have you found any aliens?”

Felix frowns. “No.”

“Not really?” Ashe says.

“Sort of?” Annette tries. “Not actual aliens, but the stuff they left behind. Satellites and weird orbs and… hm. Does the fungus count?”

Sylvain leans in, focused on Annette. “What fungus?”

“Oh! Some worlds we’ve seen are just covered in fungus. It’s the same between planets, which suggests a common origin, but we’ve never really had time to look into it. And none of us are xenobiologists, so even if we had time…” She trails off. 

“Remember Far Itahari?” Mercedes asks. Felix resists the urge to get up and leave the room; they’d just follow him and be annoying about it. “I talked to a xenobiologist there who thought the fungus could think.”

“So maybe you did find aliens,” Sylvain says with a wink.

“Maybe,” Annette says. “I’ve been trying to figure out the satellites. I know there’s a pattern there. There has to be.” She frowns. “I keep going over the data, but I’m not seeing anything. Maybe I don’t have enough of the picture…”

“Mind if I look at your data? Maybe all you need is a fresh point of view.” Sylvain grins at Annette. Everyone at the table turns to stare at Sylvain, who has so far done very little to prove he’s not a complete idiot. “What? I mean, I don’t exactly have a degree in this stuff, but all my electives were xeno classes!”

“Sure, I’ll give you a copy,” Annette says. “We can figure this out together! Or, uh, well, we can try. Before we make it to Kydoimos.”

 _In two months,_ Felix’s mind supplies. He wishes it were longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been staring at this for weeks and i no longer have any idea if i'm getting felix's voice right or not


	2. Gilded Ladder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: alcohol, vomiting right after the flashback

Kydoimos’s main spaceport is in the middle of a swamp, for some reason. Felix gave up on understanding planetary governments a long time ago. It still smells better than Azara. Unlike Azara, they’ve embraced augmented reality here, and Felix finds himself ratcheting up his filters before he’s even off the loading dock. It’s been awhile since he’s had to do that.

Annette takes one look outside and immediately retreats back inside the ship; Felix wishes he could get away with that. Ingrid and Ashe follow him outside, frowning with concentration as they adjust their implants against the barrage of AR signage and advertising. Sylvain comes after them, unaffected. “Wow,” he says. “This place smells great.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Come on. We need supplies. And something we can use for drive supports.”

Sylvain tags along to the local junkyard, even though his usefulness begins and ends at how much he can carry. To be honest, he’s pretty useful in that department. _He could learn,_ whispers something deep down. _Just ask him._ But Felix is all too good at not letting thoughts like that make it past his lips, and so they scrounge through the junkyard in silence, mostly.

“Hey! Look at this!” Ashe calls out. Felix drops the weird orb he’d been examining (definitely not a precursor artifact, probably not even a forgery) and follows Ashe’s voice to where a hive of artificial wombs towers over him. “It’s a mother probe!”

Felix pokes at it. “I wonder if the archives are still there.” 

“Only one way to find out!” Ashe flips open an access panel at face level and starts digging. Felix has never been good at data extraction, so he leaves Ashe to it.

Later that day, after they’d rigged drive supports and sold off most of Sylvain’s shitty wine, Ingrid dragged them all (minus Annette) down to a dockside bar. “I want real alcohol,” she’d told Felix. “The kind that kicks you in the face.” 

Felix cannot bring himself to disagree. He’s three drinks in when Ingrid gets this fiendish smile on her face, the one that happens when she’s drunk and wants to ruin Felix’s night, specifically. “You should tell Sylvain the story,” she says.

“What story.” Felix knows exactly what story.

“You know!” Ingrid points at him. She’s right, and she knows she’s right, and it’s fucking irritating. And embarrassing. “The one about how you left home!”

Sylvain’s next to him, almost close enough to touch, and now he focuses entirely on Felix. “Yeah, I wanna hear this!”

Felix could lie, but Ingrid, Ashe, and Mercedes are all _right there,_ and Ingrid at least would fucking love to call Felix out. Actually… maybe that isn’t such a bad idea after all. “I stole the ship,” Felix says. He leaves it at that.

Sylvain blinks. Ingrid lifts her glass as if to throw it at Felix, but it’s still got booze in it and she isn’t one to waste booze. “Felix, that’s not how it went and you know it.”

Felix does know it, and that’s why he doesn’t want to tell any stories about it, _thank you very much, Ingrid._ He doesn’t say anything, trying to wait her out, but she knows him too well. “Fine. I tried to steal the ship, failed really fucking badly at it, and the crew at the time took pity on me. That’s it. That’s the story.” Seventeen-year-old Felix had been a fucking dumbass, but he saw no need to tell people that. Especially not Sylvain.

“Didn’t Dimitri say you were like a stray cat?” Mercedes asks brightly.

Felix glares at her. He’s sure his face is so red right now. It’s the alcohol. Of course. “Shut the fuck up.” Mercedes does not take offense, because she also knows him too well. Irritating.

“You’ve been doing this for how long, and you still can’t tell a decent story?” Ingrid asks, only slurring a little bit.

“Fifteen years, and it’s not can’t, it’s won’t. Fuck you.” Felix no longer cares if he’s being rude. He downs the rest of his drink in one go. _Fuck._ Not the greatest idea he’s ever had; this shit is _strong_.

“Well, since Felix _won’t_ tell the story, I guess I have to…”

~*~

_Felix slipped onto the bridge. There were a lot of chairs here, actually. He wasn’t sure which one was the right one, so he picked the one in the middle and started poking at controls. Close the loading hatch. Seal the airlocks. Take off. It was easy, right? It had to be easy. People did this stuff every day._

_Extremely large hands attached to an extremely large man hauled Felix up out of the chair. “Excuse me. What are you doing?”_

_Felix tried to pull out of the man’s grip. “Let me go!”_

_“I think not. Dedue, please put him in one of the spare cabins for now. Then we can decide what to do with him.”_

_They’d left him in the cabin for a long time. He’d tried breaking down the door, but that hadn’t worked. Then he’d tried breaking stuff in the room, and that hadn’t accomplished anything useful. Finally, he’d rolled himself up in the one blanket on the bunk and shivered himself to sleep._

_The next morning (he thought) the crew of the spaceship he’d tried to steal had woken him up. “So,” the blonde one said. “Who are you?”_

_This was not the question Felix had expected. “I’m… my name is Felix,” he said._

_“You know this is a Descent vessel, correct? If you’d managed to take off, you’d never be able to return here.”_

_Felix seethed at being treated like a stupid kid. “That was the point,” he bites out._

_There was something like sympathy in the blonde man’s face. “We do need more crew,” he mused._

_“Dimitri, this is a bad idea,” said the large man._

_“Felix won’t try to steal the ship again. Right, Felix?”_

_“Fine,” Felix muttered._

~*~

  
  


“Hey. Hey, Felix. We should get you back to the ship,” Sylvain says, right in Felix’s ear. Felix is pretty sure he’s telling Sylvain to fuck off, but the words don’t seem to be coming out right. Sylvain laughs and slings one of Felix’s arms over his shoulders. “Definitely time to go. Come on, Felix, walk with me.”

It’s cold outside, which helps Felix focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Sylvain’s doing most of the work of keeping Felix upright; he just has to keep walking. It’s slow going, until bile rises in the back of Felix’s throat and he leans forward and lets everything that was in his stomach spill over his lower lip.

Sylvain’s holding him from behind, and that’s probably the only reason Felix hasn’t fallen in his own vomit. “Gross. It’s all over your boots.” Felix wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Ew. Really should have cut you off sooner. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” They set off again, a little faster this time, Sylvain not quite dragging Felix along. 

They make it back to the _Areadbhar_ without further incident; Sylvain stops them on the loading dock and pulls Felix’s boots off, muttering something about footprints. Felix’s sole contribution to the effort is leaning on the wall and trying not to fall over. 

Once the boots are off, Sylvain guides Felix to his cabin. “Uh. Gonna need you to unlock the door, Felix.” Felix obediently squints at the door and punches in his code. It takes three more tries before he can convince his fingers to do what he wants them to do and the door slides open. They stumble inside.

“Okay. Felix.” Sylvain sounds nervous. _Why would he sound nervous?_ “Don’t take this the wrong way, because even drunk as fuck I bet you could kick my ass, but I’m not letting you sleep in those clothes.” 

It takes a second for Felix’s drunk mind to follow the logic. “Fine,” he says, fumbling at his shirt. Sylvain lets him try for a few seconds, then bats his hands away and unbuttons it himself. 

Shirtless, Felix sits down on his bunk. “Hang on,” Sylvain says. “You got your pants, too.” Felix does not give a shit. Laundry is a problem for Sober Felix. “Come on, Felix. You’re gonna get puke all over your nice blankets.”

Felix attempts a glare. “Don’t care.” Distantly, he wonders if Sylvain is trying to seduce him.

“Look, I know I don’t have the greatest reputation,” Sylvain says, as if Felix gives a fuck about his reputation. “I promise I’m not here to try anything. You’re way too drunk for that. Just… let me help you?”

Sober Felix would have bristled at the implication he couldn’t take care of himself. Drunk Felix just wants to go to sleep already, so he clumsily shucks off his pants and lies down and lets Sylvain tuck him in. “Six blankets, Felix, really? You get cold at night, huh?” 

Felix doesn’t bother with a response.

~*~

In the morning, Felix nearly trips over his clothes and boots from the night before, clean and neatly bundled outside his door. There’s a hypospray nestled on top and Felix presses it to his neck without a second thought, sighing in relief as it washes away his headache. _Fuck. I really drank too much last night._

Annette’s the only other person aboard. She’s humming and dusting the chairs on the bridge (they have not had a chance to collect dust) when Felix makes an appearance. “Felix! How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Felix says. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Ashe and Ingrid didn’t say where they were going.” Annette shrugs. “Mercie took Sylvain to get an AR implant. He’ll need one if he’s going to stay here.”

“So he’s staying here, then?” _He’s going to leave, just like everyone else. Of course._

“I don’t know! You should ask him!” Annette grins at him. “I heard he brought you back from the bar last night.”

Felix does not look at her. “I would have done the same for him. Or anyone.”

“But you were the one who got drunk!”

“Ingrid just had to tell him _that fucking story_ , what was I supposed to do? Not get shitfaced?” Is he turning red? He’s probably turning red. Fuck.

“Yes, actually,” Annette says. She’s being very reasonable and she knows it. “You like him, and you should ask him to stay with us. And if you don’t…”

“Oh no. Not another song. Spare me from this fate, I beg you.”

“Felix! I’m serious!” She stomps her foot. 

“Fine, fine, I’ll ask when he gets back.” Felix changes the subject. “How’s the resupply going?”

Sylvain does not return that evening. When Mercedes gets back, she explains that Sylvain’s found a hostel to stay at, and that he’s looking for work. “I told him he didn’t have to stop at the first new planet he saw, but he said it was love at first sight!”

Felix walks away without a word.

~*~

Ashe brings back a set of data archives containing, probably, trade secrets that he hides away in a secret compartment. Ingrid tunes up the insystem drives. Mercedes watches Felix as he sets a departure time, as he grows more tired and more irritable. He’s losing sleep, not that anyone needs to know that. It’s stupid. He didn’t even say anything. There isn’t a problem.

The _Areadbhar_ lifts off, precisely on schedule. Felix sits at the weapons station, ignoring everyone around him and lost in his own thoughts. _I should have said something. Why didn’t I say something?_

Mercedes draws him aside a few hours after liftoff. “You should rest,” she says softly. “Please.”

“I don’t need--” he starts, but the sadness in her eyes stops him. _Was I really that obvious?_ “I’ll go,” he says instead, and he leaves. He won’t sleep, probably, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Felix lets himself into his cabin and stops short, more awake now than he’s been for the past week. “What the fuck.” _Great. Now I’m fucking hallucinating._

Sylvain’s sprawled out on his bed, on top of the covers, fast asleep. Felix touches his arm: yes, this is really happening. “Wake up,” Felix says, shaking his shoulder. “Idiot.”

Sylvain blinks awake slowly, almost theatrically. “Hi, Felix. Miss me?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Felix’s eyes hurt, but he can’t keep them off Sylvain. “I thought you were staying behind.”

“Changed my mind,” Sylvain says, grinning like an idiot. “It was a little late to ask for permission, though. So, sorry I, uh, stowed away?”

“I’m going the fuck to bed. Get out.” Felix drags Sylvain off the bed and pushes him at the door.

Sylvain lets himself get pushed. “Aww, you’re not going to let me stay?”

“No.” Felix reconsiders. “I mean, yes, but not _here_ . Get _out.”_

~*~

Someone’s pulled out one of the shitty board games. This one’s based on a map of old Earth, with dice and little figurines representing armies and far too many fiddly rules. Felix hates it.

Ingrid looks up first. “Morning, Felix. Want my spot? I don’t want to play anymore.”

Felix scowls down at the board. There’s a lot of red markers on it, and he’d bet anything they weren’t Ingrid’s. “Are you losing?”

“Maybe,” Ingrid says. 

“She’s not doing too bad,” Sylvain says. “She’s never played this game before, after all.”

“More like never finished a game of Risk before,” Ingrid corrects him. “We got pretty far, about a year ago? And then--”

Sylvain cuts her off. “Lemme guess. Felix flipped the table?”

“I wasn’t even playing!”

The dumbass has the temerity to fucking _wink_ at him. “Doesn’t stop you from flipping the table.”

Felix lifts the edge of the table. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

“Felix!” Annette calls out from navigation. “Be nice! And anyway, it was my fault.”

“You tripped. It wasn’t your fault.” Felix sets the table back down.

“No one was having fun by then,” Ashe says calmly. He rolls the dice, frowns, and removes the last yellow piece from the board. “I concede.”

“Me too,” Ingrid says, standing up. “There’s no way I can win by myself.” She and Ashe leave Sylvain to put the game away. 

Felix walks over to the navigation console. They’re still in the Kydoimos system, far enough out to use the Descent drive. Annette’s calculated routes to three different planets. “We should go to Morne, Felix! They’ve got a precursor satellite!” Sylvain perks up at the mention of precursors, but he doesn’t say anything.

“More data for your collection?” Felix pretends to think about it, just to tease Annette. “It’s a fungus planet. I don’t know about that…”

“We don’t have to land on it! Felix, please? For me?” Annette smiles up at him. 

Felix caves. “We’ll go when Ingrid’s ready.”

“So Annette’s your one weakness, huh?” Sylvain’s got the game neatly boxed up, tucked under his arm. “I should have guessed.”

Felix glares at him. “Say no to Annette. I fucking dare you.”

Sylvain grins wickedly. “Hey, Annette?”

“Hmm?” 

“No.”

“Meanie! I’m not going to share my data with you now.” Annette plays it up, of course.

Sylvain staggers backward, free hand clutched to his chest. “How cruel! Can you ever forgive me?"

Annette pretends to consider something. "Maybe. I'll have to think about it!"

"Annette, please," Sylvain drops to his knees. "How could I live without your forgiveness?"

Felix rolls his eyes.


	3. Shivering Chrysalis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the fungus chapter! it gets Weird 
> 
> (also, this one fought me the whole way, i've had bits of it written for over a month) 
> 
> (also also, if i don't have something tagged and i should, please let me know, i'm not good at ao3 yet)

Most of Morne is covered in thick, offputting orange. It’s almost the color of Leonie’s hair, and Felix hates himself a little for making the connection. It’s been years since he’s let himself think of her.  _ I wonder how she is? Did she ever-- No. I need to focus. _

Ashe had talked him into landing. It’s been years since the last time Felix had been on a fungal expedition, and this time he’d probably have to lead it.  _ Ugh.  _ But expeditions on planets like Morne often turned up weirder artifacts than usual, and weird artifacts sold well. Maybe it was one of those universal constants.

Annette’s got the auxiliary scan trained on the precursor satellite, recording its broadcast. She’ll probably disappear later to analyze her data. She might even let Sylvain help her; he seems genuinely interested.  _ He’s not as stupid as he pretends to be. _

And that leads to the other thing: if  _ stupid _ had been an act, then what about  _ horny? _ He’s attractive, and not just because he was a redhead. If Felix had been into casual sex, he would have jumped Sylvain months ago. But he wasn’t, so. And as far as he could tell, Sylvain had kept himself to himself, at least aboard ship. There were the off-color jokes, but even Mercedes could make a dick joke. Sylvain wasn’t special. Right? 

“Strap in, Felix,” Annette says, jolting Felix out of his thoughts. “I’m taking us down.”

Felix locks down the weapons systems before giving up his seat to Sylvain, who’s learning navigation. It’s odd not to be in his usual seat during reentry; odder still to watch Sylvain very carefully keeping his hands to himself as he follows Annette’s instructions, doing the things Felix usually did. He does well, of course; Felix usually spends his time in reentry focusing on scan, watching for trouble, and there’s no trouble here.

Annette lands the  _ Areadbhar _ with her usual skill. “Okay! We’ve landed. Who’s staying this time?”

“Ingrid, probably,” Ashe says. 

“So why do you always have someone stay behind, anyway?” Sylvain asks on their way outside. 

“You never told him? You should tell him, it’s a good story!” Annette is damn near skipping. 

Sylvain, damn him, really is smarter than he pretends. “Wait, really?  _ That’s _ why? Holy shit, Felix!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Felix glares at Sylvain. It makes him start laughing.  _ Does anyone take me seriously? _

Morne’s scientific establishment spends a lot of time and effort on the fungus, apparently. There’s a half-overgrown college on the outskirts of the spaceport that serves as a hub for expeditions and other research. Felix lets Ashe deal with the delicate work of getting a permit and sussing out the most likely prospects while he helps Mercedes go over their gear and replace a few things, mostly medical supplies for her kit. They meet back up on the college’s quad, under a cherry tree with fungus-streaked flowers.

“Okay!” Ashe says. “I assumed we didn’t want to be out there for longer than a week, right, Felix?” He waits until Felix nods. “There’s really only one possibility that close, but the fungus is really thick. There’s a spot that looks like some sort of precursor building, about three days walk from the nearest outpost, and the university here is willing to pay for any close-range scans of it we can get. Any artifacts we can carry out are ours, of course. Sound good?”

“I knew it was a good idea to bring the machetes!” Annette grins up at Felix. “I bet you can’t wait to murder some fungus!”

“I just want to get it over with. You can be in charge of the machetes.” Felix does not sigh, so Annette can’t call him a spoilsport. 

“Wait, you’re letting Annette have a machete?” Sylvain asks. “She’s tiny!”

“She’ll be fine. She’s vicious.” An angry Annette was a spectacle Felix hoped Sylvain would never have a reason to see. “Did anyone call Ingrid? I don’t want her coming after us again.”

“All taken care of,” Ashe says. “If we’re all ready to go, there’s still a lot of daylight left. And our permit’s only good for a week…”

An hour later, they’re all deep in the fungus. Felix’s hair is full of the stuff, and it’s pissing him off. They’re not the first to attempt these particular precursor ruins, and the path the last group left behind is still quite spacious, but Annette is taking her machete duties very seriously and whacking errant tendrils as she sees fit. Every time she does that, the fungus sends out another cloud of dark orange spores.

Not that Felix regrets putting Annette in charge of the machete. Far from it. She’s having fun, even if he isn’t. Even if he’s a week away from a goddamn shower.

The path opens up into a little clearing, shaded by the fungus weaving into itself overhead. Fist-sized bulbs hang off some of the more slender trunks. They look a little obscene and Felix braces himself for the obvious joke.

“Weird. I don’t remember hearing about this,” Sylvain says. “I mean, I can see why. Maybe there’s a little grove full of dicks deeper in.” He tries to catch Felix’s eye, but there’s no way Felix is going to let him have the satisfaction.

Mercedes lets Sylvain have a pity giggle. “I’d rather not see that, personally!”

Sylvain looks at the bulbs thoughtfully, then pulls out a knife and cuts one open. There’s this odd substance inside, a bit like bread dough, if bread dough had a habit of getting overly foamy. “I bet we could eat this,” he says, because Sylvain is an idiot. 

“Absolutely not.” Felix drags Sylvain away from the cut-open bulb. “No one is going to eat the weird fungus… whatever that is. I will not help you if you do.”

“Actually…” Ashe stops when Felix glares at him, but not for long. “I looked into it. It’s safe to eat. Apparently it doesn’t really taste like anything.”

Felix can feel a headache coming on. “ _ No. _ Do  _ not _ fucking eat it.”

They leave the clearing and its weird bulbs behind and make good time for the rest of the day. They make camp in another, thankfully bulbless clearing, with a stunning view of the night sky, and eat a cold dinner together. Sylvain cajoles Ashe into telling the story of how Ingrid had come after them, piloting the  _ Areadbhar _ alone, in the middle of a different expedition. “It took a really long time to talk her down,” Ashe says, winding down. “She thought we’d all been kidnapped or something! Anyway she took the ship back to the spaceport, and then we had to sell all the stuff we’d found to pay the fines. Lokossa  _ really _ didn’t like people just flying spaceships in their atmosphere wherever they wanted.”

Felix finds a relatively flat spot and lays out his sleeping bag.  _ Really should have gotten a warmer one. _ There’s nothing he can do about it now, though, so he kicks off his boots and lies down. He closes his eyes and determinedly ignores the night’s chill and the sounds of someone lying down right fucking next to him. “Fuck off, Sylvain.”

“Uh, nope. I’m staying right here.” Felix cracks open an eye; it’s hard to tell, but he’s pretty sure Sylvain’s grinning at him. “Besides, you’re shivering.”

Felix doesn’t dignify that with an answer, but he does pull the sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. Then he freezes as Sylvain throws an arm over him and pulls him close. “What are you doing?”

“Warming you up.” There’s a smirk in Sylvain’s voice, and, well, Felix doesn’t hate it. “Really, I’m doing us all a favor. You’d be  _ so grouchy _ if you couldn’t sleep because you were cold.”

“Careful, Sylvain,” Ashe calls out. “He’s all elbows in the morning!”

Great. Sylvain is _cuddling_ with him and there’s a fucking _peanut gallery._ _Ridiculous._ “Shut the fuck up, “ Felix grumbles. He lets Sylvain stay, because that’s easier than listening to him whine. And he’s warm. 

~*~

The path stops dead two days later. This doesn’t stop Annette; she’s already mapped out a route and she doesn’t miss a beat, just starts hacking her way through the fungus stalks as if she’d been doing it all day. Felix joins her. It’s been too long since he’s held a blade.

It soon becomes clear why their predecessors stopped; the fungus weaves together over their heads and all around them, and it’s old enough to resist even Felix’s best efforts with his machete. They’re close to the ruins, though; judging by the map Felix saved to his implant, they’re less than half a day away. If they all take turns with the machetes, they’ll be fine. Well. If the others take turns, anyway.

Annette hands off her blade to Mercedes, who keeps up with Felix for about an hour before letting Ashe take over. This lasts for about two more hours before Sylvain taps Felix’s shoulder.

Felix does not immediately turn and brandish his machete at Sylvain. Annette must be proud of him. “What do you want?”

“Need a break?” Sylvain asks. “That looks like hard work.”

It is, but Felix is a long way from getting tired. “I’m fine.” 

“Here, take my spot,” Ashe says, holding out his blade. “Felix won’t get tired for hours.”

Three hours later, Felix’s blade scrapes against stone. They follow the wall around to an opening choked with fungus stalks that Sylvain shoves aside, and then they’re inside. There are still carvings on the walls, but whatever meaning they had escapes Felix, twisting away from the way he thinks. Ashe scoops a pulsating orb off the floor. Annette is carefully inspecting the walls, probably scanning them for the university. 

The ruins themselves aren’t very big, just the one hallway opening into a small room. There’s a lot of fungus jammed into an opening on the other side of the room, but Felix doesn’t have the energy to deal with it and apparently no one else does, either. “Ashe, this place isn’t supposed to be dangerous, is it?”

“Nope. We should be okay to stay here tonight, if you want,” Ashe says without looking up from the odd cube he’s inspecting.

Sylvain wanders over to join Ashe. “Hey, I wonder…” His fingers trace a design on the side, then wipe at the spores and dust stuck to it. “We should take this back with us.”

“Wish we could, but it’s too big.” Ashe sighs. “I bet it would go for a good price though.”

Sylvain frowns. “It can’t be  _ that _ heavy.”

“If you want it, you’re carrying it back,” Felix says. “And no, I won’t help you.”

Sylvain bends down and picks up the cube. “Yeah. Yeah, I got this.”

“What do you even want it for?” Felix asks. 

“Uh.” Sylvain looks down. “So I might be wrong, but I think this is a power supply. If I remember my classes correctly. It’s been awhile.”

Felix shrugs. “You’re still carrying it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sylvain says. And true to his word, he carries it back over three days by himself. He doesn’t even complain about it, which is probably a minor miracle.

~*~

Sylvain tags along when Felix goes to the university to drop off a copy of their scan data. “You know,” the grad student who takes charge of their data says, “there’s a clinical trial going on. They’re looking for voyageurs like you.” She pauses, then adds what she apparently thinks are the magic words: “It’s paid, too.”

Felix isn’t worried enough about money to risk his body on weird experiments, but Sylvain’s interested. “What kind of trial?” he asks.

“There’s a mind, out there in the fungus,” the grad student says. “Professor Hanneman’s figured out how to connect human minds to it.”

Communing with the planet-wide fungus-mind absolutely has to be one of the worst ideas Felix has ever heard, but Sylvain is obviously considering it. “I’ll have to think about it,” the dumbass says, as if he hasn’t already decided to try it. “I’ll be in touch,” he adds with a wink.

He follows Felix outside. “So,” he says, “Gonna yell at me?”

Felix represses a sigh. “Do what you want. I’m not your mother.”

“I wouldn’t wish that on you. You’re way too nice to me.”

Felix has thought of himself as a lot of things, but  _ nice _ hasn’t ever been one of them. “I’m not--”

Sylvain cuts him off. “You are. Even if you don’t want people to think you are.” He waits a second, then: “Look, if anything seems off, I won’t do it. But…”

“But what?”

Sylvain won’t meet his eyes, for once.  _ Is he embarrassed?  _ “I want to know, okay? Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to know more about the precursors. I’ve been staring at Annette’s data for months and I feel like I almost get it. And maybe this fungus thing will help, I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ll regret it if I don’t even try.”

Felix nods. “...Then I hope you don’t regret trying.”

Professor Hanneman’s office is on the outskirts of the campus, in a building almost completely covered in fungus. After a short interview (far too short, in Felix’s opinion), Hanneman ushers them both into the room next door.

Someone, years ago, left the window open and let the fungus grow inside, winding through a tangled device and surrounding a half-reclined chair. The upholstery’s seen better days, and there’s the ghost of a frown on Sylvain’s face when he notices, but it’s not enough to stop him. Felix leans against the cleanest wall, out of the way, while Sylvain settles down in the chair and lets Hanneman attach leads from the device to his temples. 

“I’m going to engage the device now,” Hanneman says. He flips a switch somewhere in the coils hanging over Sylvain’s head and--  _ fuck. _ One moment Sylvain is smiling uneasily, and the next there’s… nothing, like all that Sylvain is has just drained out of his body. Felix unclenches his fists. This isn’t the kind of problem he can solve with a punch. “We’ll bring him back in an hour,” the professor says. “Call me if you notice any movement.”

Felix steals a chair from the hallway and sits down next to Sylvain. His face is slack, his mouth slightly open, with no trace of his usual sly smile, or the intelligence he tries to downplay, or the determination of an hour before. Felix takes one of Sylvain’s hands in both of his and stares at that instead. If he doesn’t look at Sylvain’s face, he can pretend he’s just sleeping, or something.

_ Could I have stopped him?  _ Felix scowls down at Sylvain’s hand.  _ Probably.  _ Felix doesn’t have the kind of claim on Sylvain that he’d respect, though. They’re just friends. Nominally, Felix is charge of Sylvain, not that anyone cared who was captain of the  _ Areadbhar _ after Dimitri left. He could have leaned on that, and it might have even worked, but then what? Sylvain would leave. Just like Dimitri. Just like Leonie.

Felix turns Sylvain’s hand over and traces the lines of his palm with a finger.  _ I should talk to him. Fuck. He’s smart. Maybe he’ll figure it out if I just kiss him? No, that’s stupid. Fuck this. He’ll just do something dumb and get himself killed or something. _

Professor Hanneman comes back when the hour’s up and shuts the device down. Sylvain doesn’t wake up. “It may take some time for him to recover,” he explains to Felix. “Possibly as long as a full day. I can have him brought back to your ship, if you wish.”

Felix looks down at Sylvain. “I can handle it. Thanks.” He lifts Sylvain up; it’s both easier and harder than he thought it would be. Easier, because even as big as Sylvain is, he’s still lighter than one of the  _ Areadbhar’s _ drive columns; harder, because Sylvain is unconscious and that means he’s not cooperating in the slightest.

He makes it back to the  _ Areadbhar _ without any incidents worse than a few odd looks. Mercedes meets them at the loading dock and helps him get Sylvain into his bunk, listening quietly as Felix tersely explains about the trial. “I see,” she says softly when Felix stops talking. “I’m going to do some research. I think you should stay with him.”

Felix nods. “Yeah. I’ll be here.” He sits down and waits for Mercedes to leave before he takes Sylvain’s hand again. “Wake up, you idiot.”

~*~

There’s a hand stroking Felix’s hair. Nice. It feels nice. He raises his head, and there’s Sylvain, alive and smiling gently and definitely all there. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Felix manages. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than you look. Were you here the whole time I was out?” Sylvain’s hand is still in Felix’s hair. 

“Yeah. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but… yeah.” Felix sits back up, and Sylvain stops petting his hair. “So. Um.” Felix has no idea how to phrase his question.

Luckily, Sylvain is smart. “It was… weird. Alien. Like, the whole planet was my body? Don’t laugh.” Felix isn’t laughing. “All that fungus out there, it’s all one mind. And it thinks really slow.”

“So the planet’s alive?”

Sylvain shrugs. “Yeah, you could think of it that way. Alive, and capable of conscious thought. Maybe the precursors were like that, too.” 

Felix looks down at his hands; now that Sylvain’s awake, he doesn’t know what to do with them. “Would you do it again?”

“No,” Sylvain says quickly. “I wouldn’t. Look at you, you must have been so worried.”

“I was,” Felix says, because surely he can admit that much. “But you shouldn’t let that stop you.” Not everyone is happy to just drift, after all. Felix suspects Sylvain is the kind of person who needs a goal in life, something to pour all his passion into. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Sylvain reaches out to grab Felix’s shoulder. “And you can’t tell me you don’t care.”

Felix closes his eyes. “Do you?”

“Will you let me?”

Maybe it’s the stress, or the lack of real sleep, but Felix is out of words to say. So he leans over Sylvain and kisses him instead. Sylvain’s arms wrap around his back and drag him out of the chair, pulling him half into the bunk. When Felix comes up for air, he crawls the rest of the way into bed with Sylvain. “Does that answer your question?” he breathes into Sylvain’s ear.

“Hmmm… no. You should say it.” Sylvain’s smiling, and the words sound like teasing, but there’s this serious edge in his voice. “Please? For me?”

“Fine. I… care about you.” Now that he’s said it, finally said it, everything else feels easier. He pokes Sylvain’s forehead. “Do you?”

Sylvain blinks. “Yeah. Of course I care about you. C’mere.” He pulls Felix into another kiss. “Let me show you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have very little of the next two chapters written so it might be awhile, sorry :(


	4. Hammer of Tyrants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guess where I decided I wasn't playing the dlc until after I posted this!!
> 
> (ps: why do i keep writing board games, i don't even like them)

Felix studies the board carefully. Mercedes and Annette are close to winning, it looks like; there’s an obvious spot where he could put his piece to stop them, but then the game would go on for another hour. He picks a random spot on the board instead.

Next to him, Sylvain sighs. “Felix, you said you’d read the rules.”

“Did I?” Felix can’t help smirking. Sylvain looks at him, opens his mouth as if to say something, and then closes it.

Ashe moves his piece. “You two would’ve won ages ago if you’d just work together.”

Sylvain shrugs. “Maybe.” He thinks for a moment, then makes his move. It’s not the move Felix was expecting; he glances at Sylvain and gets a wink back. _He knows._

Annette goes next, and then Ingrid, and then Mercedes, who completes her half of the winning objective. Annette is only one move away from winning the game for both herself and Mercedes, assuming no one messes it up. Felix has no plans to; he moves, deliberately, as far from Annette’s piece as he can get.

Ashe moves, but he’s not close enough to stop Annette. Only Sylvain stands between her and victory. He contemplates the board for a long time, even though there’s only one move that makes sense. Then he moves his piece right next to Felix’s.

Annette snatches her piece up and wins the game before Sylvain can change his mind. “Who wants to go again?”

“I’m gonna call it an early night.” Sylvain gets up, winking at Felix. 

Felix helps clean up before he goes to the cabin he and Sylvain now share. “You took way too long,” Sylvain whines, sprawled out naked on the bunk.

“I took five minutes. You’re insatiable.” Also, irresistible. Sylvain doesn’t need to know that, though. He’d be… insufferable.

Later, Felix traces the scars on Sylvain’s hips with his fingertips. They’re long and thin, and run all the way down his legs; perhaps they’re surgical scars? Sylvain tenses under his touch, and Felix follows the unspoken direction, sliding his hands up Sylvain’s sides. 

Sylvain relaxes into him. “You wanted to fuck me all evening, huh?”

“Why would you think that?”

Sylvain twists a lock of Felix’s hair around his fingers. “You were really trying to throw that game earlier, for one thing. And you couldn’t stop looking at me.”

Felix doesn’t have the energy to snort. “It wasn’t just that. You’re too good at those things.”

“Oh.” Sylvain’s silent for a moment. Then he mumbles, sleepily, “I don’t have to be.”

“I’m not mad,” Felix says. “I was just curious. Wanted to see if you could still win.”

He feels Sylvain chuckle more than hears it. “Next time.”

~*~

Felix wakes up cold. Most of his blankets are gone, and, distressingly, so is Sylvain. "Sylvain?"

"'m sorry," comes a mumble from the floor.

 _The fucking floor?_ Felix peers over the side of the bunk and there he is, tangled up in blankets and sweaty as hell. "Come on, come back to bed."

"Don't leave," Sylvain mumbles.

Felix reaches out and shakes his shoulder. "I'm right here, Sylvain."

Sylvain's eyes snap open. "Felix?" He sits up, leaning against the bunk. "Sorry. I didn't mean to steal all your blankets."

“I’m sure you fell out of bed on purpose, just to fuck with me.” Felix tries to pull Sylvain back up, but the angle is all wrong and he’s not cooperating anyway. “I’m not letting you sleep down there.”

“Wouldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Then don’t sleep. Just get back in bed already.” This time, Sylvain lets Felix tug him back into bed. “What happened?”

“Bad dream,” Sylvain mumbles into Felix’s shoulder. “When I was a kid, I fell down an elevator shaft. Broke both my legs. Like, a lot. It was months before I could walk again.” A moment of silence, then: “I don’t like falling.”

Well, Felix can’t fix years of whatever Sylvain’s leaving out of this story, but he can fix one thing. He crawls over Sylvain and shoves him at the wall. “Move over.” Sylvain scoots over without protest, and Felix settles back down.

“You’re way too nice to me,” Sylvain whispers.

“Stop saying that. It’s not true.”

“All I do is fuck everything up.”

Felix raises an eyebrow, even though it’s dark. “Really? Then you’re the worst fuckup I’ve ever seen.” He feels Sylvain tense up, and, well, that probably wasn’t the best phrasing, was it? “You’re not a fuckup. Believe me, I would know.”

“You would?” He sounds almost… hopeful?

“I would.” Felix strokes Sylvain’s back. “Go to sleep. I’ll still be here.”

Sylvain kisses the side of Felix’s neck. “I’ll try.”

~*~

The next planet they come to, Kalyani, is dotted with domed settlements. They meet the customs officer on the loading dock; they’re not going to sell much, just enough to buy some fresh food and fuel, but most planets like to make sure they’re not bringing in any weird diseases or weapons. The officer’s eyes flick to Felix’s arms, and her face hardens. Felix crosses his arms over his chest and coolly returns her gaze.

She picks through Ashe’s crate of artifacts, frowning, but can’t find a reason to reject them. “You’re good to go,” she says, grudgingly, then turns to Felix. “I would recommend you remain aboard. We cannot guarantee your safety, with such… obvious body modifications. I do hope you understand.”

“That’s--” Felix kicks Sylvain before he can say something stupid.

“Well, uh, we’ll make it quick,” Ashe says before the silence can get too awkward. 

“Do that,” Felix snaps. He walks back inside, only a little stiff, Sylvain following. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“That was bullshit, Felix.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Felix throws himself into a seat. “They live here, I don’t. They’re the ones with the problem, not me.”

Sylvain presses a hand to his forehead. “So you’re just going to let them treat you like shit?”

“No, I’m going to let Ashe do his fucking job so we can fucking leave.” Felix glares at Sylvain. “I’m done talking about this.” 

“Sorry. You’re right.” Sylvain sinks into the seat next to Felix’s. “So, want to talk about something else?”

“Like what?” Precursor bullshit, Felix guesses, from the intense and yet faraway look in Sylvain’s eyes.

“I’ve been thinking.” Sylvain pauses to let Felix make the obvious joke, but he doesn’t. “What if the precursors were like the fungus?”

Felix raises an eyebrow. “The precursors left all kinds of artifacts behind. I’m not saying they have to have opposable thumbs, but all the fungus I’ve seen didn’t seem that interested in movement.”

“ _Like_ the fungus, not literally fungus. Or maybe literally fungus, I don’t know. More advanced than anything you or I’ve seen, though.” Sylvain considers his next words. “So, the fungus on Morne was a planet-wide organism, right? What I’m saying is, what if the precursors were the same way?”

“They’d be stuck on their home planet, probably. And they clearly weren’t, since they left stuff behind all over the galaxy.”

“But not themselves. No one’s ever found, like, a fossil or anything. Just Descent drives and devices and weird orbs. And fungus.” Sylvain reaches around Felix’s shoulders and drags him close.

Felix leans into Sylvain. “So, what are you getting at?”

“They didn’t leave all that stuff behind. Think about it, Felix: you’re stuck on a planet, and there’s no way you could ever leave. But you have the resources of an entire planet, and probably a lot of time on your hands. And you want to see what else is out there. So, what would you do?”

“I’d get to the fucking point, Sylvain.”

“You’d bring whatever’s out there, that you can’t reach, to you. That’s why Descent drives only go one way. It’s not gravity, or whatever. They’re going to the precursors’ home planet.”

Felix twists around so he can look at Sylvain. It makes sense. It’s almost terrifying how well Sylvain’s explanation fits with the data they have, and yet: “You can’t be the first person to think of this. Have you told Annette?”

Sylvain shrugs. “Not yet.”

“You should,” Felix says. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

“You really think so?” Felix wonders how many more times and in how many more ways he’ll have to say _I mean it when I say nice things about you_ before Sylvain finally fucking gets it. “I mean, I literally came up with all this in the shower. Didn’t want to bother Annette with something stupid, you know?”

“Why are you like this?” Felix mutters. He’s not really expecting an answer. Sylvain doesn’t push Felix to talk about his past, so Felix doesn’t push Sylvain. It’s only fair.

“Easier to be a fuckup than try to live up to my dad’s expectations.” There’s a darkness in Sylvain’s eyes, and Felix wants nothing more than to chase it away. “Safer, too, in the end.”

“Safer?” Felix has not forgotten the missiles.

“Yeah. I was supposed to be some great politician like my dad, and seriously? Fuck that. And the only way I saw to keep his people off my back was to make myself so politically poisonous they’d want to forget I existed.” He’s tense; his hands are curled into tight fists, nails digging into his palms. “If you act long enough, it stops being an act. It becomes real,” Sylvain says quietly. “I didn’t like being that person, so I left, and now it feels like I’m acting all over again.”

“Sylvain…” Felix whispers. “I’m sorry.” What else could he say, to that?

“It doesn’t matter.” Sylvain disentangles himself and stands up. “You hungry? I could make us lunch.” The smile on his face is painfully fake.

“I’m not hungry,” Felix says, but he follows Sylvain to the galley anyway. He settles back to watch Sylvain cook.

Felix is no stranger to high expectations, after all; he’d left home to get out from under the shadow of a brother he could never surpass. So, hesitant, he asks, “Do you want to know why I left home?”

“Thought you hated that story,” Sylvain says.

“Not how. Why.” Felix waits, but Sylvain doesn’t say anything more. “My brother died when I was a kid. Ran into a burning building to save someone else, actually.” All these years, and it still makes him angry. “My dad… well. He couldn’t stop comparing me to Glenn. I couldn’t stand it. So I left.”

Sylvain won’t look at him, now. “Sounds like your brother was a good person.”

“He was. He really was.” Felix blinks tears out of his eyes, grateful that Sylvain can’t see him do it. _I miss him,_ he almost says. 

“Wish I knew what that was like.” Sylvain hands Felix a sandwich. “We’re leaving when Ashe and the others get back, right?”

“Right.” Felix lets Sylvain change the subject.

~*~

Rao is mostly covered in water, dotted with archipelagos and floating arcologies. Felix frowns as he goes over the local news; this planet has two nets, because it’s at war. According to the history articles Felix can find, Rao has a planet-spanning war every few generations. It sounds exhausting. Maybe a younger version of himself would have welcomed the chance to fight in a war and prove himself, but now? Felix just doesn’t see the point. 

Ashe suggests a little too innocently that they land at a spaceport controlled by the rebellion, and Felix can’t bring himself to do more than fix Ashe with a long, level look. He’s not surprised when Ashe empties all of the secret compartments, though Sylvain is impressed at how much Ashe has been able to hide. Felix is even less surprised when Ashe tells him he’s already got a buyer arranged for all the illegal weapons they’ve been carrying-- some of them from Sylvain’s home planet, even.

The surprise doesn’t come until they’ve landed. “So, um, they want to talk to us,” Ashe says.

“Who wants to talk to us?” Felix asks patiently. He’d seen a rumor about merfolk on the rebels’ net and he had half a mind to take Sylvain and check it out. Telling a bunch of rebels he had no interest in joining them was a waste of his time.

“The rebellion’s leader is here. They want us to join them.” Ashe’s face is red, but now that he’s started, he won’t stop. “Felix, I really think we should. They want to change Rao, really change it.”

This is stupid. This is a waste of time, a distraction. “Fine,” Felix says. “We can hear them out.”

Sylvain volunteers to stay behind-- “I’m okay with whatever you decide,” he whispers into Felix’s ear-- and everyone else follows Ashe to the meeting place, a cafe near the spaceport. The guards outside are unsubtle at best, especially a dark-haired man lurking just inside the cafe’s front door. 

The rebel leader introduces herself as Edelgard von Hresvelg, admiral of the Black Eagle Strike Force. Felix keeps his face smooth, though inwardly he’s skeptical: admirals, generals, or whatever else rebel leaders call themselves are not famous for the amount of free time they have, usually. She makes a good case for herself, about throwing off the shackles of religion and sharing the wealth of the oligarchs with those less fortunate. If Felix had lived here, maybe he would have been convinced, but as it is… this planet has no claim on him. Luckily, Edelgard seems to pick up on his disinterest and concentrates her efforts on the others.

Back aboard the _Areadbhar_ , it feels like ages until Felix finally gets Sylvain alone, in their cabin after dinner. “So, what did you think of their proposal?” Sylvain asks. He hadn’t asked all evening; he was probably being considerate.

“I’m not staying here,” Felix says. “But if anyone wants to stay, I won’t stop them. I don’t think I could, anyway.”

“Yeah, I looked them up. They had some good points, I thought.” Sylvain shrugs. “But you’re not staying, so I’m not staying either.”

Felix frowns. “Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.” Sylvain kisses Felix’s cheek. “I chose you. I’ll always choose you.” He grabs Felix’s chin and turns his head until he can’t escape eye contact. “I love you, Felix.”

Felix has a better answer than words: he pulls Sylvain down and kisses him hard, his other hand making sure Sylvain knows exactly how he wants to spend the rest of the evening.

“And you call _me_ insatiable,” Sylvain mumbles into Felix’s mouth. 

~*~

The next day, Ingrid and Ashe pull Felix aside. “We’re staying here,” Ingrid says. Felix, honestly, appreciates the bluntness. “I, for one, like this planet, and their cause is good. You should give them a chance.”

“I did,” Felix says. “I’m not the kind of person who dies for a cause.”

Ashe intervenes before they can start arguing. “It’s okay! You came to the meeting and you didn’t even glare at the admiral a little! I know you were trying, at least.”

 _That… was not a compliment._ “I… I hope it all goes well for you,” Felix finally manages to say. He’s already imagining the ship without Ingrid’s irritable expertise, or Ashe’s uncanny ability to project innocence to a customs officer while he’s standing right in front of a hidden compartment, and he hates it. “I’ll miss you.”

Ingrid laughs. “I thought I was going to have to fight you, or something. You’ve really mellowed out.” She doesn’t say _since Leonie,_ but Felix hears it anyway. 

“It’s been a long time,” he snaps.

Ingrid doesn’t let it get to her. “I’m proud of you,” she says. “And I hope one day you find whatever you’re looking for.”

“Who said I was looking for anything?” Felix glances away.

Ingrid hugs him, ignoring how stiff he gets. “I’ll miss you, you stubborn dumbass.” 

They lift off a week later. The _Areadbhar_ doesn’t feel any lighter in flight, and that throws Felix off more than anything else.


	5. Distant Star

_And I hope one day you find whatever you’re looking for._

_Who said I was looking for anything?_

Ingrid’s parting words rattle around and around in Felix’s head, until sometimes they’re all he hears. _I’m not looking for anything. I have everything I could ever want._ He’s told himself that for years. Has he been wrong all this time?

It doesn’t stop until Sylvain pins him down in bed (“I’m going to fuck this funk out of you,” he whispers hotly, and oh how Felix wishes that was all he needed) and even then, it doesn’t stop for long. Sylvain picks up on it, of course. He doesn’t say anything, just drags Felix on top of him and holds him close. Felix falls asleep there, lulled by the rise and fall of Sylvain’s chest.

Over the next few weeks, there’s no revelation, no grand realization. Time passes, and the weight of absence lessens. Then, they come to Mielikki.

Mielikki’s main spaceport is a city of tall white buildings reaching for the sky; its lower reaches are full of cute little cafes and well-regulated markets. Annette drags Mercedes into one of the libraries and disappears within its depths for most of a day. Mercedes drags her back out, all starry-eyed at the knowledge just one library could offer.

They still need fuel and supplies, so Felix and Sylvain take some of their artifacts from Morne to a nearby market. Sylvain manages to get a better price on them than Felix thinks he could have; it’s taken years but he knows he doesn’t have the patience or the charisma to haggle very well. “Hey, Felix,” Sylvain says once they’ve finished arranging the fuel delivery, “wanna go on a date?”

Felix nods, and Sylvain’s face lights up. _Is this it?_ Felix wonders, matching Sylvain’s smile with a smaller one of his own. _Is this what I want?_

There’s a little sandwich shop near the market; Sylvain gets something horribly messy, and Felix gets something stuffed full of different meats (all vat-grown, the menu assures him). They talk about nothing, really; Felix finds himself preoccupied with the way the sun plays over Sylvain’s face. 

Sylvain pushes back his plate, his sandwich finished, and pulls an artifact out of his pocket. It’s a simple amber orb, gently pulsating. “Wonder if I could get this made into something,” he says.

“Why?” Felix asks. It’s just an artifact, nothing special. 

“It matches your eyes,” Sylvain holds the orb up against Felix’s face. “Maybe a necklace? These stop glowing if you damage them, right?”

Felix frowns. “I don’t need a necklace.” He doesn’t _need_ one, but if it’s from Sylvain…

“It’s pretty, like you.” Sylvain grins. “But if you don’t want a necklace, then I’ll have to come up with some other idea. Just you wait.”

The next day, Felix descends to the _Areadbhar’s_ engine room. As nice as Mielikki is, there’s still routine maintenance to be done, and it has to be done before they lift off again. It takes most of the day to go over all four insystem drives, always more finicky than the Descent drive. Finally, Felix is satisfied, and he turns to the Descent drive. It doesn’t need much, honestly; it never has. Just a check on the navigation control circuits, almost as if it were designed to be foolproof.

On the approach to Mielikki, Sylvain had spent a sleepless night with Annette doing math Felix could barely follow, and in the morning they had both come to the same conclusion: the alien home planet was over a thousand light years away, near the center of the galaxy, and there was no way they could reach it within their lifetimes. Sylvain had papered over his disappointment with a flippant “We wouldn’t have ever convinced Felix to risk the ship like that anyway,” and Felix had banished him to their bunk to get some fucking sleep rather than answer the question half-hidden there.

They still have the power supply Sylvain had found on Morne, shoved back in a corner where it wouldn’t get in the way. Felix hauls it out and considers it; the thing had blown out their old multimeter, so it definitely still had power. If he could hook it up to the drive, maybe they could make longer jumps? It’d be hard to say without some accurate measurements of the power supply’s output, but it was definitely worth investigating.

Sylvain finds him there hours later, knee-deep in cables and the ship’s entire stock of spare power conduit, a headache starting to pulse behind his eyes. “What’s all this? I didn’t think fuel prices were that bad,” he says with a little laugh. 

“They’re not,” Felix says, disentangling himself. He looks up at Sylvain, who’s hiding something behind his back. “It doesn’t matter. All I did was give myself a headache.”

Sylvain reaches for Felix with his free hand, drawing him out of the mess of cables. “Need a painkiller?”

Felix shrugs. “I’ll live. What’s that you’ve got?”

“Oh. Uh, I got you something.” Sylvain hands over the thing behind his back, an oblong package wrapped in tissue paper. Felix rips it open to reveal a dagger straight out of an old Earth movie; the amber orb from yesterday is mounted into the pommel. It’s ridiculous. “I thought you might like this more than, like, a necklace or something. It’s definitely more practical.”

Felix isn’t really sure about the dagger’s practicality; when he needs an obvious weapon, which isn’t often, his sidearm does the job. And if his sidearm doesn’t do the job, his fists will. He likes how the dagger looks, though; maybe he’ll start a collection. “Thank you,” he says, and to prove he means it, he kisses Sylvain. 

~*~

The next day, Mercedes talks Felix into having tea with her in the _Areadbhar’s_ galley. It’s her carefully unsubtle way of getting him to take a break from the power supply, but Felix can’t find it in himself to really complain. “I thought you’d be out with Annette.”

Mercedes smiles. “She’s giving a lecture today. It’s a… rather large class.”

Felix nods, understanding. Public speaking had never been his forte, either. 

“Have you decided where we’re going next?” Mercedes asks, then sips her tea.

“...Not yet.” He hadn’t put any thought into it. Irresponsible of him, really. “Why, did you have a request?”

“I was considering staying here.”

Felix sets his mug down. “What about Annette?” he forces out.

She looks down into her tea as if it has all the answers. “I still have to talk to her. I didn’t want to do it before the lecture.”

“Let me know what you decide,” Felix says, getting to his feet. “We can… stay longer, if you need time.” They’d have to sell more artifacts, but whatever. 

“Thank you, Felix,” Mercedes says as he makes his escape.

In the engine room, Felix clears away the mess of conduits and cables and inspects the power supply one more time. _They want us to come to them, right? They should have made this easier._ Unfortunately, the power supply and the drive do not appear to simply snap together.

Felix thinks he might have figured out a circuit that won’t immediately blow itself when there’s a clatter from above and Sylvain appears, brandishing a multimeter still in its packaging. “I found that multimeter you wanted, Felix. Apparently if I want a better one I have to be in charge of the power grid, so I hope it’s good enough.”

“Thanks,” Felix says, taking the multimeter. He hooks it up to the power supply, keeping an eye on the readout, and… well. That is certainly a number. He turns to Sylvain, standing somewhat nonplussed behind him, and shows him the readout. “You’re better at navigation than I am. If we hooked this up to the Descent drive, how far could we jump?”

Sylvain blinks. “Felix, what?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Well… uh. All the way to galactic center, at least. Probably a few hundred light years past it. Felix…” Sylvain stops and swallows. “Did you…?”

It’s fucking unsettling to see Sylvain at a loss for words. “You figured out where to go,” Felix says. “I thought I could figure out how to get us there, if you still want to go.”

Sylvain wraps Felix up in a hug. “Felix, you’re the best, I love you so much,” he babbles into Felix’s hair. “I thought you didn’t care about the aliens.”

Felix attempts a shrug, but Sylvain’s arms are too tight around him. He thinks Sylvain gets the message anyway. “It’s not that I wasn’t interested, I just… ugh.” Even here, even to Sylvain, it’s hard to talk about some things. 

“Just what?” Sylvain prompts when it’s clear Felix isn’t going to say more.

“I didn’t want anything, for awhile. I got left--” _behind,_ “--in charge and I just kept going because what else could I do?” Felix takes a breath. “And now there’s something I can do, that isn’t just drifting.”

“It’ll be a one-way trip,” Sylvain says. 

“It’s always been a one-way trip. I know that.” It’s hard to be annoyed when Sylvain’s rubbing circles into his back. “And we’re not going unless everyone agrees,” Felix adds, because it’s his turn to say something painfully obvious. _And Mercedes wants to stay here. Maybe Annette, too._

“Of course.” Sylvain isn’t letting him go anytime soon. That’s fine. “Did you ever figure out how to get the power supply hooked up?”

“I think so. I don’t want to test it down here.” Felix twists just enough in Sylvain’s embrace to set the multimeter down. “We have some time before Annette gets back.” His hands wander down Sylvain’s back to grip his ass. It’s a nice ass, really. “Our cabin. Now,” he orders, and Sylvain obeys.

~*~

Felix lets Sylvain lay out the plan for Mercedes and Annette that evening over dinner. Mercedes listens politely, glancing occasionally at Annette, who has a tiny frown on her face. “What are you going to do when you get there?” Annette asks when Sylvain’s done.

_Not we. You._

“I was hoping you had some ideas, Annette! You’ve got the most scientific training out of any of us. We could run it like an expedition, or something…” Sylvain trails off. He’d caught it, too.

“Mercie and I talked,” Annette says, “before dinner. And as much as I liked figuring things out with you, Sylvain, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on a fungus planet.” Inwardly, Felix winces at the mention of fungus. He hadn’t considered that. “So I’m staying here, with Mercie. And you,” she flicks Felix’s nose like he’s twelve or something, “are _not_ allowed to get all sulky about it.”

“I don’t _sulk,_ ” Felix mutters. This earns him another nose flick. “Stop that.”

“Don’t worry, Annette,” Sylvain says with a wink, “I’ll make sure he follows orders.”

“You’d better!”

“I think you two will be just fine,” Mercedes says with a smile. 

Annette grins. “Better than fine, I bet.”

Felix can feel his ears turning red. “Anyway, do you have any ideas for what we should do there, Annette? Or you, Mercedes?”

Mercifully, Annette allows the subject change. “Hmm. Take it slow. Make sure it’s not trying to kill you. Broadcast everything you find. Let Sylvain do the talking?”

“Rude,” Felix mutters. He dodges the nose flick this time.

“Annie, we could set up a listening station here,” Mercedes says thoughtfully. “That way, there would be something for them to broadcast to.”

“That’s a great idea, Mercie!” Annette wraps her arms around Mercedes. “We’ll make sure there’s someone listening for you, so don’t you dare stay quiet!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sylvain says.

~*~

Sylvain checks something on the navigation console again, nervousness written in the crease of his brow. Felix has watched him check his math again and again, even sending it to Annette before they left orbit. If there were any mistakes, he would have found them by now. “Hey,” Felix says, drawing Sylvain away from the console. “You should take a break.”

“What if I’m wrong?” Sylvain’s eyes are unfocused; he’s probably still checking his math. “What if I’m just sending us to our deaths?”

Felix pokes the middle of Sylvain’s forehead. “Stop that.” Sylvain blinks at him. “I mean it. Do something else for awhile.”

“You can’t say you’re not worried,” Sylvain says. It’s ridiculous. _He’s_ ridiculous.

“Of course I’m fucking worried!” Felix snaps, and there’s a flash of hurt across Sylvain’s eyes. _Fuck._ “About you! We’ve got another fucking week before we go,” and isn’t that a hell of a way to put _jumping a thousand light years away from everything they knew to go meet some aliens that may or may not still be alive,_ “and I’m not going to let you worry yourself sick.”

Sylvain smirks down at him. “Maybe you should distract me, then.” His hand slides up Felix’s back, under his shirt. “You know, there was something I was wondering about.”

“And that would be?” 

“We should turn the gravity off. And then fuck.”

“Absolutely not.” And then, because Sylvain is going to pout and that shit’s irritating: “You’re smart. You know what fluids do in zero g. I’m not scrubbing the ceiling, and neither are you.”

Sylvain heaves a theatrically heavy sigh. “Fiiiiine.”

The week passes faster than Felix would have liked, wrapped up alternately in final adjustments to the Descent drive and in Sylvain. The drive is, honestly, a mess; Ingrid would give him shit for the sloppy welds and thoroughly unmanaged cabling, but it only has to hold together for one more jump.

Sylvain is a mess, too. Despite Felix’s best efforts, he’s been losing sleep, going over the navigation data until Felix drags him away. It shows in his eyes, red-rimmed and hazy; in his hands, shaking just the smallest bit with nerves and caffeine; in his face, drawn with anxiety. He looks up with a small, hesitant smile as Felix takes his seat at the weapons station. Sylvain, of course, has taken over navigation. “Did you sleep?”

“I’ll sleep after. We’ll have time,” Sylvain says. “We’ll have the rest of our lives.” He sounds like he wants to believe it.

“Yeah. The rest of our lives,” Felix echoes. He looks at Sylvain, exhausted and stressed and determined, and it strikes him in an instant: he’d follow this man anywhere. “We… we have a few minutes, right?”

“Seven, before we miss the window and I have to recalculate everything. I will, though. We can wait as long as you want.”

Seven minutes. _Don’t waste time._ “I love you,” Felix blurts out. “I love you, and this, this thing, this jump… we’re doing it together. I won’t let you leave me behind.”

“Felix. I could never leave you behind.” Sylvain pulls Felix into a kiss, long and slow and tender. “I love you, too.” He takes Felix’s hand and settles it over the unassuming little button that engages the Descent drive. “Together?”

“Together,” Felix agrees, and together, they fall for a thousand years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit it took me four months to write this, i'm sorry D:
> 
> anyway i made a fandom twitter, it's @typhiria, come watch me very occasionally yell about felix or whatever
> 
> also thank you so so much for reading! this is extremely an au i wrote just for me so it's really cool to see other people enjoying it!


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